WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- The Susan G. Komen Foundation, the U.S. breast-cancer awareness entity blasted for ending its Planned Parenthood funding, said Friday it reversed its decision.

"We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives," Komen Foundation founder and Chief Executive Officer Nancy G. Brinker said in a statement released on Business Wire. "We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not."

She said the original goal was a "fiduciary duty" to the organizations donors by not funding applications made by organizations under investigation. House Republicans are investigating whether Planned Parenthood is using federal funds for abortions.

"We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political," Brinker said. "That is what is right and fair."

"Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer," she said in the statement. "Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood," as well as preserve their eligibility to apply for grants in the future.

"We are enormously grateful that the Komen Foundation has clarified its grant-making criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders and volunteers," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. "What these past few days have demonstrated is the deep resolve all Americans share in the fight against cancer, and we honor those who are at the helm of this battle."

Richards said the Planned Parenthood-Komen Foundation alliance helped reach vulnerable populations, such as low-income women, African-American women, and Latinas, "especially in rural areas and underserved communities where Planned Parenthood health centers are their only source of healthcare."

"With Komen Foundation grants, over the past five years, Planned Parenthood health centers provided nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and more than 6,400 mammogram referrals," she said. "With the outpouring of support over the past week, even more women in need will receive lifesaving breast cancer care."

The Komen Foundation came under a barrage of criticism from its members, politicians and activists after the foundation announced its decision to sever ties with Planned Parenthood earlier this week.

The statement said the foundation would call its network and supporters "to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work."

"We ask for the public's understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve," Brinker said.

WATERLOO, Ontario, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- People with low self-esteem tend to bombard friends on Facebook with negative news of their lives -- making themselves less likable, Canadian researchers say.

Amanda Forest, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, and her adviser, Joanne Wood, asked students how they felt about Facebook.

People with low self-esteem were more likely to think Facebook provided an opportunity to connect with other people and to perceive it as a safe place that reduces the risk of awkward social situations, the researchers said.

They also investigated what students actually wrote on Facebook, asking the students for their last 10 status updates. Each set of status updates was rated by an undergraduate -- a stranger -- for how positive or negative it was and how much they liked the person who wrote them.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, found people with low self-esteem were more negative than people with high self-esteem -- and the coders liked them less.

The coders were strangers, but that's realistic, Forest said because in their earlier research, they found nearly half of Facebook friends are actually strangers or acquaintances -- not close friends.

In addition, people with high self-esteem for more responses when they post negative items, perhaps because these are rarer, the researchers said.

MIAMI, Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Drinking diet soft drinks on a daily basis might increase the risk stroke, heart attack and vascular death, U.S. researchers said.

Hannah Gardener and colleagues from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and at Columbia University Medical Center in New York also found regular soft drink consumption and a more moderate intake of diet soft drinks do not appear to be linked to a higher risk of vascular events.

Gardener and her research team analyzed data from 2,564 participants in the National Institute of Health funded Northern Manhattan Study, which was designed to determine stroke incidence, risk factors and prognosis in a multi-ethnic urban population.

The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found those who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely than those who drank none to have suffered a vascular event, after taking into account pre-existing vascular conditions such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes and high blood pressure.

However, light diet soft drink users -- those who drink between one a month and six a week -- and those who chose regular soft drinks were not more likely to suffer vascular events, the study found.

"Our results suggest a potential association between daily diet soft drink consumption and vascular outcomes," Gardener said in a statement. "However, the mechanisms by which soft drinks may affect vascular events are unclear. There is a need for further research before any conclusions can be drawn regarding the potential health consequences of diet soft drink consumption."

NEW YORK, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Pfizer Inc. voluntarily recalled 14 lots of Lo/Ovral-28 and 14 lots of generic Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol due to a packaging error, U.S. officials said.

A statement by Pfizer said: "An investigation by Pfizer found that some blister packs may contain an inexact count of inert or active ingredient tablets and that the tablets may be out of sequence. The cause was identified and corrected immediately.

"These tablets were manufactured and packaged by Pfizer Inc., commercialized by Akrimax Rx Products and labeled under the Akrimax Pharmaceuticals brand. This product is distributed to warehouses, clinics and retail pharmacies nationwide."

Although the packaging defects do not pose any immediate health risks, consumers exposed to the affected packaging should begin using a non-hormonal form of contraception immediately.

Women who have taken the affected product should notify their physician and return the product to the pharmacy, the FDA said.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- About 7 percent of U.S. men and women ages 14-69 have oral human papillomavirus, but the prevalence is higher among men, researchers said.

Dr. Maura L. Gillison of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus and colleagues used data from a cross-sectional study as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009 to 2010, a statistically representative sample of the U.S. population.

A total of 5,579 men and women ages 14-69 were examined at mobile examination centers for HPV.

"Oral HPV infection is the cause of a subset of oropharyngeal -- relating to the mouth and pharynx -- squamous cell carcinomas. Human papillomavirus positive mouth and throat cancer are associated with sexual behavior in contrast to HPV-negative mouth and threat cancer, which are associated with chronic tobacco and alcohol use.

At least 90 percent of HPV-positive mouth and throat cancer are caused by high-risk HPV type 16 and oral infection confers an approximate 50-fold increase in risk for HPV-positive mouth and threat cancer.

Incidence has significantly increased over the last three decades in several countries, and HPV has been directly implicated as the underlying cause, the researchers said in a statement.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found oral HPV prevalence was associated with several measures of sexual behavior, including those who ever reported having had sex versus not having sex. Prevalence of HPV increased with lifetime or recent number of partners for any kind of sex, vaginal or oral, the study said.

LONDON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Their "male warrior" instinct means men are programmed for aggression toward outsiders, a trait that leads to conflict, a Dutch-led study claims.

The study, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in Britain, suggests an evolutionary instinct for violence against others helped early men improve their status and gain more access to mates, but in modern times can translate into large-scale conflicts.

This "tribal" attitude of men intended to boost their chances of reproducing is similar to the territorial behavior of chimpanzees, studies have claimed, but may not serve society well in the present day.

Researchers said the "male warrior" instincts "might not be functional in modern times and are often counterproductive," Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.

"A solution to conflict, which is an all-too-common problem in societies today, remains elusive," Mark van Vugt at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, who led the study, said. "One reason for this might be the difficulty we have in changing our mindset, which has evolved over thousands of years.

"Our review of the academic literature suggests that the human mind is shaped in a way that tends to perpetuate conflict with 'outsiders.'"